The requirement to permanently maintain land in forestry once planted should be changed, UCD environmental research fellow Cara Augustenborg has said.
Speaking at a Forest Industries Ireland conference in Dublin on Monday, Augustenborg said the replanting obligation was offputting to farmers.
“This is an easy workaround. We can make farmers, if they choose to, go back into development or agriculture. We can make them pay a premium back to the Government, for example,” Augustenborg told the Irish Farmers Journal.
“It’s a simple policy-level solution we can adapt to. If we want to get more farmers into forestry then we have to address this issue.”
She was speaking at the “Forestry: Real Solutions to Ireland’s Climate Emergency” conference hosted by Ibec body Forest Industries Ireland (FII) in Glasnevin, Co Dublin, on Monday.
Minister for the Environment Richard Bruton said that the Government had invested nearly €3bn in forestry since the 1980s, which, through ongoing sustainable forest management, could contribute to delivering abatement of up 20m tonnes of CO2 between 2012 and 2030.
“However, we need to increase participation rates in the forestry programme to maximise benefits for climate action, the environment and rural communities,” he said.
Cars
Irish forests sequestered 3.6m tonnes of CO2 on average per year, equivalent to 60% of the CO2 emitted annually by cars on Irish roads. However, the country is not reaching its 8,000ha/year planting target.
The conference heard that community-led programmes would also help the uptake of forestry. One of the issues for forestry is when investors from outside the county are profiting from the business and not the local people.
Read more
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The requirement to permanently maintain land in forestry once planted should be changed, UCD environmental research fellow Cara Augustenborg has said.
Speaking at a Forest Industries Ireland conference in Dublin on Monday, Augustenborg said the replanting obligation was offputting to farmers.
“This is an easy workaround. We can make farmers, if they choose to, go back into development or agriculture. We can make them pay a premium back to the Government, for example,” Augustenborg told the Irish Farmers Journal.
“It’s a simple policy-level solution we can adapt to. If we want to get more farmers into forestry then we have to address this issue.”
She was speaking at the “Forestry: Real Solutions to Ireland’s Climate Emergency” conference hosted by Ibec body Forest Industries Ireland (FII) in Glasnevin, Co Dublin, on Monday.
Minister for the Environment Richard Bruton said that the Government had invested nearly €3bn in forestry since the 1980s, which, through ongoing sustainable forest management, could contribute to delivering abatement of up 20m tonnes of CO2 between 2012 and 2030.
“However, we need to increase participation rates in the forestry programme to maximise benefits for climate action, the environment and rural communities,” he said.
Cars
Irish forests sequestered 3.6m tonnes of CO2 on average per year, equivalent to 60% of the CO2 emitted annually by cars on Irish roads. However, the country is not reaching its 8,000ha/year planting target.
The conference heard that community-led programmes would also help the uptake of forestry. One of the issues for forestry is when investors from outside the county are profiting from the business and not the local people.
Read more
Farmer-owned forestry more socially acceptable conference hears
How Scotland has achieved 11,200ha planting programme
Producing more food means planting more trees
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